Shooting in the N.B.A. has become positively Dickensian. An obsession with the 3-point shot, which has developed over several years but was stoked greatly by the recent titles won by the Miami Heat, the San Antonio Spurs and the Golden State Warriors, has created an environment that is truly the best of times and the worst of times for shooters.

There is no doubt that when deployed correctly, the 3-pointer is a valuable tool, immediately increasing scoring efficiency upon its introduction. For the most part, an increase in 3-pointers has continued to correspond with an increase in efficiency.

But this season, with players from the 5-foot-9 Isaiah Thomas to the 7-foot-3 Kristaps Porzingis thinking that they should be gunning from downtown, the league may slowly be eclipsing the rate at which the lower-percentage shot can increase the average shooter’s efficacy.

Entering the weekend, teams were taking 23.8 3-point attempts per game, and it looks as if the record for most 3-pointers per game will be topped for the fifth consecutive season. But with a small dip in 3-point percentage (and field-goal percentage over all) and an increase in turnovers, the league has its lowest average in points per 100 possessions since 2003-4.

Teams are averaging more than 100 points a game for only the fifth time in the last 21 seasons, but that is almost entirely because of the blistering pace of games. There is still a long way to go this season, but thus far teams are working harder to get less.

Image

The Lakers’ Kobe Bryant is having a historically ineffective outside shooting season — by one measure, the worst in 36 years.CreditJeff Chiu/Associated Press

A statistic known as effective field-goal percentage (eFG) is one effort to quantify the relative importance of a 3-pointer versus a 2-pointer. The idea is that a player can hit a lower percentage of shots from 3-point range and be just as effective as a player who shoots only from inside.

For instance, entering Saturday, DeAndre Jordan of the Los Angeles Clippers was among the N.B.A.’s leaders with a field-goal percentage of 66.3, and because he had no 3-point attempts, his eFG was also 66.3 percent. Jordan is so effective because 86.5 percent of his shots are taken from zero to three feet and 46.2 percent of them are dunks.

Contrast that with Andre Iguodala of the Warriors, who was second in the N.B.A. with a 65.3 eFG despite a lower field-goal percentage (54.8). The bump is a result of the fact that 43.5 percent of his shots are taken from 3-point range and his 3-point percentage is an astronomical 48.1.

For a player like Iguodala, or his teammate Stephen Curry, taking more 3-pointers is a no-brainer. But over all, the league’s eFG this season is 49.0 percent, which is a drop from the record of 50.1, set in 2009-10 and matched in 2013-14. As teams desperately search for efficiency through the long shots, they are barely outperforming the 48.5 percent figure produced in 1978-79, which was the last season before the 3-pointer was introduced.

It is no surprise that this season’s Warriors were on pace to set the team record for eFG, at 57 percent. In the 64 minutes their Death Ball lineup (Draymond Green, Harrison Barnes, Klay Thompson, Curry and Iguodala) had logged, their eFG jumped to an unbelievable 79.5 percent. But it makes far less sense for a team like the Philadelphia 76ers to be among the top 10 in 3-point attempts despite being the fifth-worst team in the N.B.A. in eFG.

On an individual basis, the explosion of players who believe they can shoot from outside has resulted in an incredible disparity between the best shooters and the worst ones.

According to Basketball-Reference.com, a player has qualified for the 3-point percentage title 2,641 times since 1979-80. The number of qualifying shooters has increased from 15 in the first season of the shot’s existence to 105 this season.

Among all the qualifying players in 3-pointer history, Iguodala (65.3 this season) and Curry (65.0) were both among the 10 best performers in terms of eFG. The Clippers’ Jamal Crawford (40.1), the Nets’ Joe Johnson (40.0) and the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant (35.3) were ranked 2,639th, 2,640th and 2,641st.

In a twist of fate, Bryant and Johnson, nearing the end of their careers, are the league’s two highest-paid players while having arguably the least effective outside shooting seasons of the 3-point era.

These numbers will probably even out some as the season goes on. A pace of 96.4 possessions per team per game is much faster than players are used to — the last time there were more than 94 for a full season was 1993-94 — and the players currently missing shots from outside will probably be told to cut it out.

But if the early part of this season has demonstrated anything, it is that while more of a good thing is generally better, when it comes to 3-pointers, there may be such a thing as too much.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section SP, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: As 3-Point Shots Fly, Efficiency Suffers (Not to Mention Those Poor Rims). Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe